“Can't we do something to restrain him?” He slowly shook his head.
“You don't mean to say that we can't stop a man who is bent on murder?”
“Our motives might be regarded as—well, not exactly clear, yours and mine,” mused Sir Robert. “Besides, he hasn't done anything. You can hardly restrain a man from becoming indignant if an acquaintance breaks into his house and steals his wife.”
“But she is n't his property, like his watch!” I exclaimed.
He smiled tolerantly at me. “In a sense, she is,” said he. “In a sense. The weight of law and tradition is against you there, Eckhart.”
“Traditions are nothing to me!” said I, hotly.
“They still mean a good deal to the rest of the world,” said he dryly. “And even the law still has weight.” Then he went on, quite as if I had not interrupted him. “In England it might be possible, in case we could prove that he had openly threatened murder in the presence of competent witnesses, to put him under bonds to keep the peace. But this is n't England—it is the China Coast. At that, what would bonds mean to a strong, self-willed man in Crocker's state of mind! A jealous man!” He raised his monocle, held it a few inches before his face, and looked through it at a speck on the ceiling. He even moved it around a little, and squinted his right eye, as if sighting through a transit.
I wanted to strike it from his shaking fingers. Instead, I sat up very straight and clasped my hands tightly together in my lap.
“Do you know,” he continued, in that irritating, musing tone, “I believe the man is still in love with her, or thinks he is.”
“Love!” I sniffed. “You call that love!” He did n't look at me. He was still squinting at the ceiling. Pretty soon he sighed. “When you come right down to it,” he said, “if a man has no right to protect his home—and that implies some right of control over his wife—'love, honor and obey,' you know—what becomes of our institutions! You see, Eckhart, in the eyes of the world Crocker is entitled to a good deal of sympathy. He took care of this woman for years, supported her in some luxury, I take it, gave her a much richer sort of life than she had known before.”